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This article is about the television movie. For other uses of the word, see Thread disambiguation.

Threads
Directed by	Mick Jackson
Produced by	Mick Jackson, Graham Massey, John Purdie, Peter Wolfes
Written by	Barry Hines
Starring	Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale
Distributed by	BBC
Release date(s)	1984
Running time	110 minutes
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Threads is a 1984 BBC television docudrama depicting the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom and its aftermath. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, Threads was filmed in late 1983 and early 1984. The premise of Threads was to hypothesize the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom after an exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States escalates to include the UK. According to the credits, Carl Sagan was among the consultants for the production.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Broadcast and release history 2.1 Broadcast 2.2 Video and DVD releases 3 Trivia 4 See also 5 Footnotes

The story focuses on two families from Sheffield, beginning two months before the attack. We watch their lifestyle and their reactions as fighting erupts and escalates, the UK places itself on a war footing, and strategic bombing commences. We then follow family members as they face, and sometimes die of, the medical, economic, social, and ecological consequences of a nuclear war. The film concludes thirteen years after, as civilization rebuilds to a stage like the early Industrial Era. Both the plot and the atmosphere of the film are extremely bleak.

The story begins with two families in Sheffield, linked by young Ruth Beckett and Jimmy Kemp becoming rapidly engaged due to an unplanned pregnancy; the young couple buy a flat and Jimmy argues with his parents over having a baby during the recession. In the background, ignored by the characters at first, the Soviet Union has invaded Iran and the United States, with British support, has turned to military retaliation. A third plot thread follows the Mayor of Sheffield, who is put on alert and tasked with creating a local team who could run the area in the event of a nuclear attack. The situation escalates with military clashes, Warsaw Pact troops on the Austrian-East German border, the government taking control of British airlines and roads for military purposes, and large protests against British involvement in the crisis. Soon Britain is gripped in fear with panic buying and mass exoduses from cities, and reports come in of tactical nuclear weapons being used in Iran. Public information films about how to cope with a nuclear attack are now being broadcast daily and repeatedly.

Early one morning, at 8:30, Sheffield is going about its normal business. Jimmy and Bob are at work, bartering and arguing with a few people, Ruth complains that she feels too sick from morning sickness to go to work. The Kemps are arguing over taking down doors to use for a fallout shelter while listening to the radio. Suddenly, the four-minute warning sounds and Sheffield erupts into panic. Warheads detonate over the North Sea, creating an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out communications; at 8:35 a second missile strike hits RAF Finningley, a NATO base near Sheffield, shattering windows and increasing panic. Jimmy and Bob duck under a pickup truck, and the Kemps suddenly rush to take down the doors and put up the shelters. After the first detonation, Jimmy and Bob emerge from the truck to see a huge mushroom cloud rising over them. Jimmy then flees through Sheffield to try and reach Ruth (this is the last we see of him, save for a later flashback); Ruth and her family attempt to make it to their basement with Ruth's frail grandmother; and Jimmy's parents hurriedly prepare a woefully inadequate shelter out of mattresses and doors. Ruth suddenly decides to rush outside, but her father quickly catches her and takes her back indoors just in time. Missile exchanges escalate and a direct strike hits Sheffield - the city is devastated and most of the city is set on fire, with Jimmy presumably being killed and his mother being severely burnt and partially blinded by the heat of the blast. Her son Michael, who ran outside and was last seen panicking in a corner, dies either from the blast or from rubble falling on top of him outside the house. Their daughter Alison, having gone to the shops beforehand, is never seen again until briefly at a detention center for looters 4 weeks later. Given the "special wartime" laws, it is presumed she was summarily killed for the offence. On-screen text tells us that 210 megatons have fallen on the United Kingdom (with 3000 in total across the planet), that two-thirds of houses are in fire zones, and immediate deaths are between 17-30 million.

Both of the families suffer from immediate radiation sickness, though the Becketts suffer less due to being outside a fire zone. Ruth's mother tries to convince Ruth that Jimmy is still alive, but she says that she knows Jimmy is not. One of the Mayor's team dies from falling rubble, and tensions increase amongst the team, knowing that their attempts to control the outside world are futile. Ruth later leaves the cellar and wanders through the devastated city, while the remaining hospitals are inundated (in a particularly gruesome scene, a man has his leg amputated with only a rag in his mouth to help him). and Jimmy's mother eventually dies from radiation sickness. Ruth later finds her and leaves with one of Jimmy's books as a keepsake. Her grandmother dies in her sleep, and her parents are murdered by looters, who are then shot by soldiers. Jimmy's father joins the fight to get food from a nearby warehouse, which isn't to be distributed for 2 weeks, and the soldiers have to use tear gas to control the situation, along with detention camps (for a brief moment, Jimmy's sister Alison is seen looking through the fence of a detention camp, showing she survived the initial bombing). The Mayor's team attempts to control the situation but proves unable, with communications down and their headquarters running out of oxygen, and being unwilling to have rescue teams come in for them for fear of the radiation they will bring. After 4 weeks, they are all found dead from suffocation. Two months after the war, sunlight begins to return bringing much ultraviolet light, and a radio message comes up saying that if Britain is to rebuild then it must go agricultural; however, the temperature has drastically fallen and everything needed for modern farming - chemicals, fertiliser and fuel for machines - will only last for one year. Only those who work in the rebuilding will receive food. Jimmy's father is seen with another man swapping cigarettes for alcohol, but he is unable to keep it down due to his radiation sickness, causing him to vomit. He then plays with Michael's video game, which - although damaged - still works. This is the last we see of him alive, as in the next shot he is shown lying dead in a mass grave. Ruth finds Jimmy's friend Bob, and together they find a dead sheep and eat it raw, despite it having suffered from radiation. Eventually, Ruth gives birth in a stable to her baby (which, surprisingly, is not physically mutated or stillborn), and she is seen with a group of people round a fire on Christmas Day in a crude parody of the nativity scene (Bob is absent and again it is presumed that he has died from radiation or, as gathered from a previous conversation, has gone to what's left of the city).

Thirteen years later, Britain's population has fallen to 4-11 million and the few people still alive are working the fields, cultivating crops in vain. Ruth collapses and finally dies, aged drastically by the conditions (it is presumed she has cancer, and she also is missing teeth and has cataracts in her eyes). Her daughter is unfazed by her death and leaves her, as well as Jimmy's book, behind. The post-war generation are emotionally and mentally stunted, talking in broken English (later, some children are depicted as speaking their own language, presumably developed themselves as their parents have not been able to communicate much with them) and educated by a fading tape of a black-and-white preschool show, "Words and Pictures," which they watch in incomprehending silence. Ruth's daughter and two boys of her age are caught stealing food. Escaping, one is shot dead. Ruth's daughter and the other boy escapes. She eats the food herself, and the boy attacks and rapes her. Later, she stumbles through the rubble, pregnant, and finds a makeshift hospital, which has basic electricity running. The movie ends with Ruth's daughter giving birth to a horribly deformed or stillborn (or both) child, and the screen cuts to black just as she is about to scream in horror.

Like The War Game, which dealt with similar subject matter, Threads mixes conventional narrative with documentary-style text screens and narration by BBC journalist Paul Vaughan. One of the key elements of the film is that much of the reportage of world events leading up to the war is in the background, with few people paying attention until it becomes clear that war is imminent.

Threads was first broadcast on BBC television in 1984 and then again in 1985 as part of a week of programmes marking the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was not shown again on British screens until digital channel BBC Four broadcast it in November 2003.

Threads was also broadcast once in the USA. In 1985, it was shown on PBS stations as part of fund raising drives, usually to good viewer response judging by the donation tallies for the respective evening the show was aired.^{[citation needed]} Threads was also syndicated in the US to commercial television stations, as well as Superstation TBS; the latter followed the film with a panel discussion on nuclear war.

Threads was originally released by BBC Video on VHS in 1987 (catalogue number BBCV4071) in the UK but soon went out of print and became a much sought-after item in the 1990s.

A DVD release appeared in the UK in 2000 on the Revelation label followed by a re-release in 2005.

The VHS/DVD releases have a modified soundtrack (compared with the broadcast version) because of rights issues.^{[citation needed]}

• During filming, the BBC reportedly got into trouble with the local police after detonating a large smoke bomb to simulate a mushroom cloud. Many residents believed there had been a real explosion.
• For added realism in its depiction of the nuclear attack and consequences, findings from the 1980 British Government exercise "Square Leg" were used.

• List of nuclear holocaust fiction
• Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
• Nuclear weapons in popular culture
• Protect and Survive, the 1970s British government information films on nuclear war.

• Threads at Google Video
• Threads at the BFI's Screenonline
• Plot outline with screenshots
• Detailed information on Threads
• The Electromagnetic Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction
• Nuclear Paranoia, which includes a chapter on Threads and interviews with the cast
• Protect and Survive